I have carried this every day since 1974 and at night it is in my night stand drawer. It is throated, the frame nickeled and the slide blued. I have used it shooting hunter pistol matches and at 50 yards it is dead on. This pistol is a part of me and points as if it were one of my fingers.

If I could only have one handgun due to financial circumstances it would be a 22 revolver, cheap to shoot.
If it was simply a personal decision then it would be a 357 revolver, covers most uses.
If the choice of one handgun was forced on me through government regulation it would be a high capacity 9mm with tons of ammo on hand.

I think it's a hard question to narrow down. For me, it would be a "general purpose" handgun. My choice would be a .357 - gives the option of more than one ammo. Probably a 3 inch barrel - easy to CCW but still accurate enough to plink, shoot critters on the farm, HD, etc. Sort of an all purpose gun. Of the top of my head - probably a 3" 357 Ruger SP101 or a 3" Smith & Wesson Model 60.

I really don't think that any one handgun fits all of a person's needs though. Otherwise, there would only be "one in the herd" . . . I'd wager that most here have more than one in their "herd"?

__________________If a pair of '51 Navies were good enough for Billy Hickok, then a single Navy on my right hip is good enough for me . . . besides . . . I'm probably only half as good as he was anyways. Hiram's Rangers Badge #63

In the spirit of the question, if I could only keep one gun for one purpose, it would be for CCW. If I could have anything it would probably be a commander sized 1911 in 9mm.
If I was limited to keeping one I own it would probably be my XDS because it's the easiest to carry everywhere.

If I were keeping one gun for all purposes it would be a 4" gp100. I have one, and if I ever had to sell off the rest that's the one I'd keep.

+1! I had to pick "plinking and recreational shooting." To me competition shooting IS recreation, so having the two is kind of redundant. But the primary purpose of any of my firearms is to turn money into noise, because it is fun!

I answered CCW but I immediately though of one gun I have that can be used in all categories. For a long list of reasons, I would select a Glock model 23 over all others and is the gun that can be used under the widest set of circumstances.

That's a bit of a problem with your poll. One gun can in many cases server many functions. If I were limited to only one gun it would serve as my range gun, self defense gun and hunting gun. A S&W 686 could handle those functions very well.

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